Thursday, 30 July 2009

Bad weather and bad luck meant no trapping last night, I was dumb enough to have blown my MBT bulb whilst 'experimenting' with my shiny new portable generator yesterday afternoon so I was almost pleased when it rained because at least I wasn't missing out on an evening of quality trapping.

I rang around a few local lighting supply shops and got lucky....very lucky actually, one local warehouse had a box of 160w MBT bulbs in stock that have been there for quite some time and they are still selling them at the 'old' price of £6.95+VAT so just under £8 each which is excellent(I purchased 3....just in case!). They do have some left so if anyone is local to Derby and wants the details email me.

It was cloudy and cool tonight but there were a few moths around, I left the trap out from 9:30pm till 3:45am.

Tuesday, 28 July 2009

I won a petrol powered generator on eBay tonight so I can get out of the garden and do some away from home trapping if the evenings warm up a little and I can talk the wife into sitting in the woods for a few hours occasionally?...I know the dogs will enjoy it that's for sure.

Another rainy evening turned into a mild but cloudy night and there were Large Yellow Underwings and Dark Arches jousting above the trap before too long, I didn't notice much else but I was busy watching eBay and playing with Excel in an attempt to do a spreadsheet of the moths I've trapped in the garden.....quite disappointed to find there have only been 43 different species of macro moth with positive identifications so far but it's only been 8 days since I got the MBT lamp so I suppose I'm not doing too badly.

I got a couple of 'new to my garden' species tonight as well as the usual bunch and a few old favourites.

Monday, 27 July 2009

It rained all through yesterday night so no trapping unfortunately and even though it was a warm day today it got very nippy once the sun had gone down so not a lot of moths around tonight but I got a few interesting specimens never the less.

Saturday, 25 July 2009

I placed the trap in a different part of the garden tonight, there are a lot of gardens and trees to the rear of my garden and if I put the trap in the 'usual' place the light cant be seen from that direction so I thought I'd give it a try at the other side of the garden so it can be clearly seen from a greater distance. I don't know if it's the fact that it's a milder night but the moths came flooding in including a large amount(31) of what look to me like Orchard Ermine moths, I've had a few of these before but never such a large concentration and for a micro they are very pretty.

There were plenty of other bland micros and 2 of the obligatory Poplar Hawks as well as a good selection of macro moths, as wonderful as the Poplar Hawks are it would be nice to get a different type of Hawk moth occasionally!.

Friday, 24 July 2009

I half expected rain tonight but I got lucky and the sky stayed clear, plenty of moths about and I was surprised to find a Poplar Hawk actually inside the 'Skinner' trap....the Poplar Hawks that I have 'trapped' so far this week have basically landed on the sheet or on the outside of the trap and considering the size of the gap it had to get through I wasn't expecting it to be there.

Thursday, 23 July 2009

I run a local acoustic music club once a month and tonight was 'club night' so I didn't get home till nearly midnight, it had rained quite heavily from 9:30pm but by midnight it had stopped so I didn't miss out on too much trapping. I put the 'Skinner' out at 12:10 and it quickly drew a bigger audience than the music club....it's a shame I can't charge the moths £2.50 each to get in....I might actually make some money that way! :0) . By the end of the night the amount of moths in the trap was much lower compared to the last few nights but still an interesting batch with 4 new species for my garden(including 2 micros at a guess)..

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

The second night with the MBT lamp was as much fun as the first, not quite so many unrecognised species but plenty of moths and another Poplar Hawk so I'm guessing they must be fairly common in my area of Derby. My wife took last nights catch to work 3 miles away and released them there so it's unlikely I'm catching the same moths as I did last night but you never know?.

The trap was out from 9:30pm to 3:30am

Tonights Log

1 Poplar Hawk

1 Magpie

4 Silver-Y

2 Swallowtail

9 Riband Wave

3 Brimstone

5 Willow Beauty

2 Smoky Wainscot

2 Common Footman

5 Marbled Beauty

6 Dark Arches

2 Dot Moth

4 Heart & Dart

2 Common Rustic

1 Phlyctaenia Coronata

1 Campion

1 Early Thorn

1 Shuttle-Shaped Dart

1 Bright-Line Brown-eye

2 Ruby Tiger(see photo above)

1 Cloaked Minor(see photo above)

9 Uncertain

There were also a lot of assorted Yellow Under-Wings flying around but few actually went into or stayed in the trap and quite a few Dark Arches did the same.

Tuesday, 21 July 2009

They say a picture says a thousand words but even these photos don't express my astonishment and sheer joy at just how well the new MBT lamp performed.....put it this way...within 10 minutes I had a Dark Arches on my foot and a Poplar Hawk on my arm, the trap was constantly being 'buzzed' by 3 or 4 moths at a time and from my vantage point(sat in a cumfy garden chair 15 feet away!) I watched moth after moth fall into the trap. I put a sheet out under the trap which also had a regular supply of moths landing on it that could be easily 'encouraged' into the trap and the amount of species I didn't recognize was mind boggling(I didn't manage to get photos of everything but I got quite a few).

I put the new lamp on the 'Skinner' trap and it was out from 9:50pm till 3:30am.

I would like to thank Ben at Essex Moths blog for recommending the MBT lamp and supplier http://bensale-essexmoths.blogspot.com/ (I hope you realise Ben you're just making things more difficult for yourself now I'm getting even more moths for you to identify! :0)

Monday, 20 July 2009

It's a bit warmer tonight so I decided to put both traps out again to see which did best but this time I put the 'Skinner' where my trap had been last time and vice versa, I'm still using energy saving light bulbs so the results aren't amazing but they are quite interesting.

Both lamps went on at 9:50pm and by 11pm both traps had 4 micros in them, by midnight my design trap had a Silver-Y, 2 Mother Of Pearl and 2 Riband Wave but the Skinner had 2 Dark Arches and a Brimstone as well as around 6 more micros. At 2:30am the Skinner didn't appear to have trapped anything new(but you never know what might be hiding under the egg boxes!), my design had now added quite a few more micros including 1 Phlyctaenia Coronata as well as 1 Scalloped Oak, 1 Garden Pebble, 1 Emmelina monodactyla and a 3rd Riband Wave.

I got both traps in at 3:30am and over all it was a reasonable haul but my design caught the most(again) which considering it's just a sheet with some sticks holding it up is quite bizarre(there's a photo of my trap in the web album - link below....if anyone wants to know the design just ask but no laughing!).

Tonights Log

My Trap

3 Riband Wave

2 Mother Of Pearl

1 Silver-Y

1 Emmelina monodactyla

1 Phlyctaenia Coronata

1 Scalloped Oak

1 unidentified(see photo above)

7 of those pesky brown things(see web album if anyone can identify this species I would be most grateful)

21 micros (not including the Phlyctaenia Coronata)

'Skinner' Trap

2 Dark Arches

1 Brimstone

3 Marbled Beauty

1 Riband Wave(the only species caught by both traps!)

2 brown ones(still unidentified!!)

14 micros(not including the Marbled Beauty)

The thing that confuses me the most is that I haven't had a catch as good as the first night I put my trap out when I got a lot more moths and one of them was a Poplar Hawk, do moths get wise to traps and avoid them?.

Sunday, 19 July 2009

I made a few more adjustments and hopefully improvements to my 'Skinner' trap today, I've moved the perspex up so there's room inside for more egg trays and I've made the gap between the perspex sheets narrower so hopefully less moths will escape. Whilst mooching around in the loft recently for something unrelated I noticed a dusty old box that has been up there since we moved in and I had forgotten about it's contents which I think will come in very handy for moth trapping...a 3' X 4' stand alone projector screen from my days as an 8mm cine enthusiast.

It's a cold night so I didn't expect much, I left the trap out for 3 hours(10:30pm - 1:30am) and found only 3 moths in there, I then decided to place the projector screen behind the trap to see if things improved and before I had even walked away another 2 more moths had arrived. 1 landed on the screen while the other headed straight into the trap so I gently lifted the one off the screen and placed it in the trap. The screen doesn't let the light through like a sheet would but it reflects it better and will come in handy for blocking light in a specific direction should any of my neighbours complain when my MBT lamp arrives. I can see the screen clearly from where I sit in front of the PC so if anything lands on it I can get out there easily and put it in the trap(the advantage of living in a bungalow?). The trap(and screen) then stayed out there for another 3 hours and the final tally was 11 macro moths so first appearances indicate the screen could be helpful but I'll keep experimenting and share my findings in future blogs.

Tonight's log

2 Riband Wave

1 Swallowtail

1 Early Thorn

1 Angle Shades

1 Silver-Y

1 Bright-Line Brown-Eye

2 Uncertian

1 Smoky Wainscot(see photo above)

I find it strange that when I get a new species in the trap one night there is often another of the same species the following night even though they hadn't appeared in all of the previous weeks catches?

Saturday, 18 July 2009

A cool 12 degrees and drizzle didn't deter me from putting the 'Skinner' out from 9:30 till 3:30 and I'm glad I did, not a big haul but 3 new species for me which is much better than getting 20 of the same old thing. It would all probably be even more exciting if I had any idea what any of them are!(see photos above)

I also caught a lot of micro moths so I am going to start taking photos of the more interesting ones from now on but there are too many similar looking micros and I have no idea how to tell them apart so you'll have to take what you get with those.

Friday, 17 July 2009

A cold and blustery night so I wasn't hopeful but I got a few including a Silver-Y(see photo above), I've decided my plan to use just energy saving lightbulbs could be a non starter so I'll be taking the very sensible advice I got from Ben at Essex Moths(http://bensale-essexmoths.blogspot.com/) and getting an MBT lamp as soon as possible.

Thursday, 16 July 2009

As forecast it rained for much of the evening but by 11pm it had stopped and though it was still cloudy it turned into a mild-ish night so I set the 'Skinner' up at around 11:15 to see if there was anything flying tonight.

I had too many other things to do and didn't get out to check it till 2am, there were about 15 moths in there plus an assortment of micro's so I did the standing round with a net trick again and added another 5 within a few minutes(mainly Early Thorns). I went out again at 2:40 and it had filled up a bit more so I netted a few more to and got back to finishing off my other tasks.

I cleared away at 3:30 and though I hadn't caught anything different to the last few nights I had trapped quite a few more than expected which were....

2 Common Footman

2 Mother Of Pearl(which I now know is a 'large micro')

2 Willow Beauty

1 Dark Arches

1 Double Square -Spot

3 Early Thorn

7 Uncertain

1 Phlyctaenia Coronata(which I also now know to be a large micro)

3 Riband Wave

1 Scalloped Oak

3 Marbled Beauty(thanks again to Ben)

14 assorted 'boring' micro moths

Not too bad considering the weather conditions and I was only using 1 trap.

It was such a nice warm day today we decided to take the dogs out to Foremark Reservoir which is in Derbyshire and only about 14 miles from where I live. I took the camera along just in case and I'm glad I did, there were probably in the region of 150+ Six-Spot Burnet Moths flying around or feeding so it was a real treat and if the forecasted heavy rain pours down later this evening they will more than make up for not putting the traps out.

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

I wanted to see how my trap design fared compared to the Skinner 'clone' I had made so I set up both traps at opposite ends of the garden, it's quite a big garden so they were 35 - 40 feet apart which should suffice. I put the lamps on at 9:30pm and things got busy fairly quickly with a lot of moths fluttering around both traps. Being somewhat impatient I ventured out to check after about 30 minutes and noticed that there were quite a few moths flying round the Buddleia bushes so I grabbed my net and managed to catch 7 or 8 of them and drop them into the traps(not really a good way of checking how well the traps worked but a good way to catch a few extras!). The 'Skinner' trap seemed to be attracting mainly micro moths and a lot of flies but there were a few interesting moths already in there(Riband Wave, 2 Swallowtail) so I was hopeful. My old design trap was faring well too and it had an assortment of...shall we say 'more interesting' moths in it(Blood-Vein, Angle Shades (see photo above and thanks to Ben for identifying this moth), Common Marbled Carpet, Scalloped Oak). I left things for another hour and went out to check again but this time the 'Skinner' was doing much better with about 25 assorted moths in there, my design was just about keeping up but it had mainly filled up with the same species the 'Skinner' had already trapped earlier on with the added bonus of a few Purple or Early Thorn Moths(I still can't tell them apart and they're buggers to get decent photos of!). Third check was at 2:30am and not much had changed apart from my trap had a Small Magpie in it as well as an earwig and 2 Bombardier Beetles. At 3:30 I went out to clear away and get photos of what I could(see my web album - link below), as usual there were a lot I couldn't put names to so if anyone can help please leave a comment under the photo.

Here are the trap vs trap results..round 1

My Trap

2 Riband Wave

1 Angle Shades

1 Blood-Vein

1 Garden Carpet

1 Brimstone

2 Scalloped Oak

2 Swallow-Tail

3 Willow Beauty

1 Small Magpie

5 Early Thorn

15 Unidentified(including duplication)

20+ micro moths

The 'Skinner' Trap

3 Riband Wave

2 Swallow-tail

2 Early Thorn

1 Willow Beauty

11 Unidentified(including duplication)

31 Micro Moths

60 dead flies!!!

Over all I would say that my trap got the better haul but the 'Skinner' trap did well enough and caught a different selection so it's well worth having it out there and it is much more portable and easy to set up. Next time I set them up I will swap their positions over to see if they do as well.

It rained a lot last night which was ok because I had a trap out the previous night so I wasn't planning on doing any trapping anyway.

I spent some of the evening on the internet studying other peoples home made trap designs and deciding which improvements my traps needed. This afternoon I went out to the garage to start making a few adjustments to my traps and I noticed a very docile Buff Tip Moth(see photo above) sat on a shelf right in front of me!!.

Monday, 13 July 2009

I've been looking on the internet at the multitude of moth traps now available, my home made trap worked fine when I used it but I have to assume that the latest designs are carefully researched and field tested so I thought instead of paying anything up to £400+ for one I would study the designs and try to emulate one of them. I'm not good at DIY but I was lucky enough to have a suitable wooden box and a bit of perspex so I decided to build a 'replica' of a Skinner trap(see photos above). The new trap certainly looks better than the old one and is much easier to set up but would it catch more moths than the other?.

I placed it out in the garden at 9pm till 3:30am in the same spot I had placed my other trap but when I went out to check how well I had done I was to say the least disappointed. There was a solitary Swallowtail, 3 Willow Beauty, 1 Riband Wave and 3 assorted moths as yet to be identified, ok there were also a lot of flies, a couple of ants and a dozen or so micro-moths but nowhere near the amount caught 2 nights ago. I know that it's a couple of degrees cooler tonight but I expected better results from more effort and that hasn't been the case.....I will attempt to put both traps out at different ends of the garden next time so I can compare results more efficiently.

Sunday, 12 July 2009

When I was 12 years old I built a very basic moth trap which worked very well so I decided to try a similar design again, my wife laughed when I turned an old sheet, a broken frisbee and some bits of broom handle into what looked like a tent for garden gnomes with a hole and a light on top but she was amazed when after just 5 minutes I had 6 moths in there including a fine looking Poplar Hawk(see photo above). It was the best thing I caught but it proved my old design still worked, I left the trap out from 9pm till 3:30am and caught 14 different species so it wasn't a terrible start(probably 50 moths in total but a lot of duplication of species). I released all the moths after taking the photographs and as any moth catcher knows it is not a traumatic experience for them so no harm is done.The most notable catches on the first night were Poplar Hawk, Common Emerald, Yellow Underwing, Scalloped Oak, Swallowtail, Buff Footman, Early Thorn, Riband Wave and Brimstone, there were a few there I didn't recognize but I shall attempt to identify them in due course.

In reality I'm no expert but I know what I know and I have a genuine interest in the subject so I thought I would blog about my 'adventures' in an effort to keep a personal record of my discoveries. I wont be taking a very scientific approach to entemology because I don't think that I really have the time or the inclination to learn all the latin names and mating habits etc.... I just like to observe and hopefully I'll get some half decent photos along the way.I started collecting moths and beetles back in the mid 1970's as part of my coursework for an exam in Environmental Science, I lived in leafy Cheshire back then and there were many places I could go to observe or 'trap' insects. My father worked nights at a large chemical plant in Warrington and he regularly came home with a selection of moths he had caught around the plant so my collection grew quickly and my knowledge grew with it. I passed the exam easily but by this time I was 16 and I had discovered the world of guitar playing so much of my time was taken up rehearsing and gigging with assorted bands and my collection lost it's appeal.It's now many years later and I now live in Derbyshire, though I have always been a keen observer I haven't really indulged my passion for entomology until last week when a large hawk moth landed on the outside of the window in the room where I am writing from and something in me was inspired to get back to studying moths. I will also try to find out what I can about any other interesting insects in my local area but my main passion is macro-moths so that is likely to be what I will write about the most....if anyone reads any of my posts please leave a comment so I don't feel like I'm just 'talking' to myself.